


Thou Shall Call Forth Sothoth

by Cap_Sweet_And_Salty_Sadness



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cults, Alternate Universe - Horror, Angst, Bad Ending, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Cthulhu Mythos, Dark Steve Rogers, Deity! Steve, Depression, Halloween, Horror, Hurt No Comfort, Lovecraftian Monster(s), M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Horror, Tentacles, cosmic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 08:36:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20863334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cap_Sweet_And_Salty_Sadness/pseuds/Cap_Sweet_And_Salty_Sadness
Summary: “Ma, I know you’re a witch,” Bucky told his mother a few nights later, under the comfort of the wood cracking in the fireplace and the slow, calm lull outside, the half-moon barely shining through the thick clouds over the neighbour’s house.His mother laughed, took his hand. “I’m not a witch, you silly boy. I’m a priestess.”Bucky frowned. He wasn’t a regular church-goer, but he knew there was no such thing as Catholic priestesses.“Priestess of what?”She fetched the same leather-bound book he found before, all those years ago. “Let me show you.”





	Thou Shall Call Forth Sothoth

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Gravity Complex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GravityComplex/pseuds/GravityComplex) and [thereddame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereddame) for being my betas for this story.
> 
> [Spotify Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6T7UOYSXCVbe5SMonNHsHV?si=fL2s0Wf1QZCmZqA9h-GC8Q)
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](http://cap-sweet-and-salty-sadness.tumblr.com/).

Bucky was from a good family. No title and not much money, and he spent most of his childhood in a modest house of Brooklyn and attended an average public school. He didn’t have many friends, but he was surrounded by the love of his two sisters, his brother and his mother.

His father, well, had a different way of showing his feelings. He couldn’t keep a job more than a handful of months at a time, a year at the most, because of his rude, unruly behaviour. He had a short temper and preferred to drink rather than speak his feelings out. Their mother tried to take on most of his drunken rage, but there was only so much she could take. 

Some nights Bucky didn’t know if his father would stop. Many times he thought of the kitchen knives as long as his forearm in the kitchen, their weight in his palm. Would it be easy, or would he need to push with his whole strength? 

A few years later, his father disappeared. His youngest sister, Rebecca, would ask their mother what happened, and she kept telling them he decided to leave for a better life. Bucky knew that wasn’t it, that his father had always been too cowardly to leave even though he was unhappy and making everyone else miserable for it. It wasn’t the whole story, but Bucky was too relieved he didn’t have to hide his bruises for school anymore or explain that he fell down the stairs again.

The funeral was quick and without fuss. No exposition beforehand. Only a small portion of his family came in the rain to watch the coffin disappear into the ground, cold droplets sliding into Bucky’s collar. He had to throw dirt into the hole and it stuck uncomfortably to his palm, gritty and wet.

Soon after, life turned for the better.

They moved to a much bigger house in Brooklyn Heights, with separate bedrooms and more room to spare, actual insulation against the harsh winter, and more bathrooms than they needed. They transferred to a better, private school. His mother brought back toys they never could afford before, new school uniforms for them instead of patching up secondhand ones the best she could. She started cooking with fruits and vegetables and fresh food, nothing from a can.

Rebecca was too young to remember their father, but sometimes, Bucky would wake up in the middle of the night and put his covers over his head, heart thumping hard in his ribcage, sure that he heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. He would wait for the pain until exhaustion won over his fear.

He discovered the book by accident when he was sixteen. One night he couldn't go back to sleep and he stumbled upon it while he was on his way to warm up some milk on the stove. There was a black cloth on the back of a chair that he'd never seen before and, thinking perhaps it was a new dress his mother was working on, took it to examine it. 

As he did so, something slipped out of it and fell on the floor. He picked the book up to put it back, but noticed his hand was dark with something wet and slippery. He gasped when he recognised what it was. 

He scrubbed himself in the sink until his skin was raw and pink, but still he could see the red. He dried his hands and took a closer look to the book. It was leather-bound, like a journal or a travel diary, but what he found inside was not his mother’s thoughts. Pages upon pages of incantations in an unknown language, rituals, lists of various plants and incenses, gibberish about the cosmos and the best alignment of the planets that would allow the Gate to be opened. 

Bucky sat at the table of the kitchen that night perturbed and troubled. His mother was a witch. 

He observed her more closely afterwards. Everyone in the neighbourhood loved Winifred, they always stopped to chat with her at the farm market, and every time she’d come back from the Sunday church, she’d have gossips to share and new recipes to try out. 

She also liked to read a lot of period romance books, would keep them stashed in a small section of the library where she thought he wouldn’t find them. Bucky read a few more than it was probably deemed appropriate for a man.

Years passed by without him finding anything suspicious other than that first book. He knew she wasn’t the delicate woman she pretended to be. He still remembered the feel of the viscous blood in his palm, stuck under his nails.

Then the war happened. Both his little brother and Bucky were drafted to fight, much to their dismay. Bucky had been a student at the Cooper Union at the time to become an engineer. Instead of graduating, he found himself covered in mud and human fluids in the middle of some rural part of Italy. 

It wasn’t what he wanted, but he made the best of it. He fought with the same rage contained in him since his childhood, soon finding himself leading a small group of men in the middle of destruction and chaos, knowing his brother was also somewhere out there and that his sisters were both working in supply factories, a first for women.

At night he’d write letters to his family, not sharing his worry as he stood so close to the enemy lines, of his undenying fear that something bad and inevitable was about to happen, but he didn’t know what, and that scared him even more. It was fine, he kept telling himself, better him than someone else.

His squad was captured in Austria. They tried to fight back, but there were too many, so Bucky insulted them until they chose him to take upstairs. No one ever came back from the labs. 

He was tortured and experimented on, injected with different substances so many times he lost the count. Each of them burnt their way in-- like his veins were on fire. He forgot why he kept repeating the same series of numbers over and over. He forgot which day it was, if it was summer or winter. Consciousness became a feeble thing, until there was nothing but darkness.

He died. Or at least, he thought he did. Perhaps he dreamt about it. In his dream, he was floating among the stars; his body weightless, painless. An arm pulled him in a soft embrace, then another one, another one, another one. Dozens of tentacles, around him. 

The being holding him stared down at him with many unblinking eyes. They shone in the darkness.

With a hesitant hand, Bucky touched its ridged rubbery-like flesh. It was warm. He tried pulling back but found his hand glued to it. In fact, it was absorbed by the tentacle. He yelled, but no sound came out. 

The rest of his body started being absorbed by the other tentacles. He tried fighting back, twisting his way out, but there was nothing he could do. Those myriads of eyes came closer and closer…

He jerked awake with a gasp. He was still tied to the operation table in that cold, cold room. But he wasn't scared anymore. He felt… calm. Without thinking twice about it, he ripped his bindings like they were made of butter. He took down the two guards stationed by the door, stole their weapons and made his way down to the cells. His squadmates were surprised to see him alive, let alone healthy enough to free them. 

They overtook the base and walked back to the other side of the line, where official KIA letters had already been sent to their families.

Bucky called his mother as soon as he could, back in the relative safety of a Londonian pub.

“Hey ma, I hope you didn’t open that letter.”

It didn’t bear well when she started sobbing hysterically. 

“Ma, what is it? Did something happen to Beck or Beth?”

“It’s your brother,” he managed to understand through her sobs. Bucky curled a fist over his mouth, closing his burning eyes until he had control back over his emotions.

“How long?”

“Two months. I… I tried, but I couldn’t save him.”

“It’s okay, ma, there was nothing none of us could’ve done.”

She cleared her throat, calmer, and he had a rush of love for her. She was so strong, had endured so much. “At least you’re alive. I was worried for you too, I hadn’t received any letters in weeks.”

And he wouldn’t see her or his sisters for another two years. By then he was mentally and physically drained, ready to put down his weapons and never pick them up ever again. His nightmares were vivid enough he started asking for night duty so he could sleep during the day. It didn’t always keep them at bay, but it helped. 

He’d started being paranoid as well. He saw things that weren’t there, heard noises that couldn’t be and he kept feeling a presence lurking close, invisible but for the weight of its gaze upon him.

Battle fatigue, he was told it was called. He was provided with someone to talk to, but he didn’t like him. He kept asking him the same questions over and over, as if the answers would be different. Bucky pretended to get better as to not be sent to one of those psychiatric hospitals that were supposedly to help people get better but reminded him of torture methods.

So he returned home in Brooklyn at the end of the war. He fell into his mother’s arms and they both sobbed for a long time. She brushed back his hair, longer than was the trend of the time, and kissed his cheeks until they were painful.

She made him his favourite meal, and they ate together, trying to catch up on lost time but also wanting to bask in the moment of being reunited. Winifred had delicate wrinkles at the corners of her eyes she didn’t have before, strands of white hair in her otherwise dark brown fringe. 

His sisters were both long gone from the family house. They had families of their own to take care of now. Bucky had missed all of it for fighting in a war he gained nothing from but a small pay and a legacy for the rest of his days.

“Ma, I know you’re a witch,” he told his mother a few nights later, under the comfort of the wood cracking in the fireplace and the slow, calm lull outside, the half-moon barely shining through the thick clouds over the neighbour’s house.

Her mother laughed, took his hand. “I’m not a witch, you silly boy. I’m a priestess.” 

Bucky frowned. He wasn’t a regular church-goer, but he knew there was no such thing as Catholic priestesses.

“Priestess of what?”

She fetched the same leather-bound book he found before, all those years ago. “Let me show you.”

There were the incantations in an unknown language, the rituals, the list of plants and their uses. He noticed there wasn’t only her precise cursive, but others too. 

“Before we came to America, before we came from Wales, my family lived in Romania. We would worship a deity so old, most forgot about Him ever since. When we came to the New World, we brought Him with us.”

“Who is He?”

She turned another page, and he shivered. There, drawn in black ink, was a mass of eyes and tentacles. 

“He has many faces, and has had just as many names over time. Some of us call Him Sothoth, Threshold lurker, Emperor of infinite space, Vanquisher of terror, Emblem of the stars. He is the Key and the Gate, the Opener of the Way. He’s omniscient and omnipresent, the All-in-One. He looks upon us and in return, we worship Him, Bring Him gifts.”

Bucky’s heart was pounding. His mother was speaking with such vehemence, such fervor in her words.

“I think He saved my life.”

Winifred smiled. “He told me He would save one of you.”

“Could I come with you?” He asked as she was preparing herself before her tall vanity, brushes applying products that he couldn’t begin to understand. To him, she was always beautiful.

She beamed at him, visibly enchanted. “Would you like that?”

He nodded, smiled back. “Of course.”

She fetched a black robe from her second wardrobe and gave it to him. “You can observe for your first session.”

She drove them to the docks, to one of the many warehouses out there that no one would look twice at.

“So, all those Sundays you said you were going to church, you were coming here?”

“Yes,” she giggled. “I’m so happy you want to be part of this, James.”

“Of course. I want to share this with you.”

An underground passage in the warehouse led to a natural cave underneath, deep in the earth. It smelled strongly of silt and salt, the ground wet and unsteady and littered with large rocks. Bucky looked up and was surprised by how tall it was, hidden in a city. 

An altar stood in the middle of the cave, surrounded by monstrous statues depicting the same deity that Bucky had seen both in picture and in his dreams. Torches were lit all around the cave, casting distorted, elongated shadows on the walls decorated with sigils.

“We used to meet in forests, under the stars, but it’s impossible here, so we chose somewhere Sothoth approved of. He said it reminds Him of His children.”

Sigils were drawn on stone slabs aligned in a circle around the altar, oddly glowing in the dim light. Bucky stayed on the side as more people in black robes joined them, formed ranks. He recognized some of the faces, some others were complete strangers. His mother came forward, raising her arms, and began a chant quickly followed by the other worshippers.

“We speak the words, we break thy bonds, the seal is cast aside, pass through the Gate and enter the world we maketh thy mighty Sign! Come forth! Come forth!”

They continued in a foreign language. Nothing like Bucky had ever heard in his travels. It sounded odd, alien. A glimmer over the altar made him gasp. The sheet of reality was shifting, ripping open, and it was happening right before his eyes.

“We brought you a gift,” Winifred said and gestured to a group hidden from Bucky’s view. Three persons came forward, two of them pushing the third one. Bucky frowned at the naked, beaten state of the man. What did his mother mean by  _ gift _ ?

The worshippers began repeating the same foreign chant as his mother retrieved a dagger from the folds of her robe. The prisoner struggled, fought back hard, but he was too weak. He was forced on his knees in front of Winifred, body shivering. He was so frail Bucky could count his vertebrae from a distance, and he wondered who that man was, what he’d done to end up here. 

She dug the knife deep in his chest with one strike, aiming beneath the sternum right in the stomach. She dragged it downwards, gutting the man like a fish down to the belly button as his screams echoed in the chamber. His entrails began to spill out, splashing to the ground in a mess of blood and gastric acid, half digested food and other bodily fluids. She discarded the dagger to another worshipper and spread the sides of the cut 

further to reach inside with her bare hand. Bucky heard the crack of his ribs, then something was pulled free with a viscous wet sound. The man’s eyes were rolled in their orbits and only the white of his pupils were showing. His mouth was still opened on a last, silent scream. 

Winifred held out his still beating heart, presented it to the golden mist, blood dripping down her bare arm where her sleeve had been pushed up. The sand absorbed every drop.

The two guards pushed the dead prisoner at the other worshippers who started dismembering him in a grotesque way. Bucky pressed his fingers against his face to escape the putrid, acidic smell that had spread everywhere. 

One moment, there was nothing; the next, a tentacle reached out and wrapped itself around the heart like a lasso, disappeared back through the Gate. Masticating sounds resonated loud enough for Bucky to feel it through his bones. He stepped closer and held his breath, waiting for what would happen next with trepidation.

Something bigger emerged, something taller than an average human, perhaps eight feet tall. He wasn’t a mass of myriads of eyes this time, but a human head and muscular torso, the midsection shifting into tentacles that kept curling and undulating unto themselves, like a dance to a beat only they knew. His head bore soft-looking blond hair that reached down to his waist, his features mesmerising in an out-of-this-world way. 

His chin was painted scarlet, and a long pink tongue swiped the blood clean as He dragged himself forward.

“A delightful present,” He said, his deep voice resonating eerily in the cave. His eyes eyes swept over His worshippers. Bucky got dizzy when they landed on him, and he forced himself to stay still, even if he bent his head in respect. This didn’t feel real, and yet, not that unfamiliar. He still remembered the embrace of the deity who had saved him, remembered His warmth. Oh, how he longed to experience that feeling again.

There was a common gasp and Bucky looked up in time to see Sothoth disappear and reappear right in front of him. “I recognise you,” He grinned, His teeth longer and sharper than a human’s.

Bucky was frozen in place, fists tense on his hips through his robes. “I was tortured for a long time, and I died. You saved me.”

“I did, sweet thing. Now…” He pushed back Bucky’s hood, dragged His fingers from his eyebrow to the side of his mouth, following his cheekbone. “What are you willing to do for me?”

His tentacles started brushing up his legs under his pants he was wearing, a tickling distraction at the back of his knees. His face burnt with a mix of arousal and shame at being touched this way in front of everyone. When he looked around, however, he noticed no one but themselves was moving anymore.

“I can manipulate time, yes." He slid a hand against the nape of his neck, leaned down to lick a long stripe up Bucky's cheek, chuckling as the man shivered. His tongue was soft, and where he'd licked him, his skin was hot and tingly. "Think about your answer, sweet thing, until we meet again." 

And just like that, He was gone. The worshippers looked around, a wave of confusion falling over them. The prisoner’s corpse was nowhere to be found.

Bucky didn’t mention what happened. He pretended he didn't know why He had vanished just as quickly as he’d appeared. For some reason, the deity had chosen him over everyone else. 

He didn't feel worthy of Him. 

Winifred went to bed early once they returned home, wishing him goodnight. Bucky remained in the imposing living room, raiding the bar and emptying half a bottle of whiskey. Soon he couldn’t feel his face or his tormented emotions, a small grace for a short moment. He wrapped himself in a warm blanket in front of the fireplace, nursing the rest of the bottle until the early hours of the morning.

The fire was blurring over the walls, his eyes prickling with unshed tears. “I wish you didn’t choose me,” he murmured to the flames. A draft of cold air against his neck gave him goosebumps all over his arms. 

He resumed his studies to become an engineer, although people around him could sense that he had changed. Before, he would’ve been the first to make jokes, flirting shamelessly with teachers and students alike, but his grades would remain excellent. Now, he was a shadow against the walls, barely speaking except when spoken to, spacing out in the middle of a lesson and not emerging until they were dismissed. His grades were passable, but nowhere near what he used to be. 

He knew being sad most of the time wasn't normal, but he couldn’t escape it. He had these dark thoughts in his head, swirling back over and over, that he wasn't good enough, not worthy of anyone's love, that people would be better off without him. He could barely sleep, and tiredness worsened his mood, so it became this vicious circle of never-ending despair. How long would he be able to endure this, he didn't know. 

He started going to boxing classes again, convincing himself that physical exercise was what he needed. He had to give that up quickly after his first fight. Somehow, he fractured his opponent’s ribs and punctured one of his lungs. With one punch. Whatever those Nazis had injected him with, he doubted he was still completely human. He was a monster. 

He bought training equipment and installed it into the house instead, in one of the many empty rooms. It wasn’t the same, but Bucky would put some music on and work out until he grew sore and tired. Then, and only then his thoughts would be calm, relaxed, and he’d sleep soundly that night. 

He still had nightmares from time to time, but living in this big house only with his mother and the newly hired servants had the merits of giving him some quiet time when he wanted to. He preferred to be isolated, people liked to probe him with questions he was unwilling to answer. 

It was a precarious system, but one that helped his grades get better, and once he graduated, he started working for the NYC Subway to develop the lines, a growing demand since the end of the war. He enjoyed it; it was hard work for a good cause, knowing how many people couldn’t afford cars, and delving into plans shifted his focus from himself. 

He started working on a side project in the house. With a small team, he transformed one of the reception rooms on the second floor into a solarium with a mechanism to open the ceiling panels. The windows were with a special tint on the exterior side to give them privacy. No need to alert the neighbours with their whereabouts. 

He had some plants added, mainly climbing vines easy to maintain like campsis, but the main attraction was the altar he ordered in obsidian deeper than the night. He lied and said he wanted to add a chapel to meditate in when the workers asked questions, before he dismissed them. 

When he showed his mother, she was delighted. “This is marvelous, James. You built a place worthy of Him.”

Bucky smiled, pleased. She insisted to go with him to buy enough incense and candles to last them a few years. Bucky wanted to have the sigils imbedded into the floor, so he commissioned an artist to have them carved out of sapphire. The precious stone reminded him of His eyes. Statues were gifted by another devout worshipper and made for a last glorious addition. 

Bucky was busy giving the room its last details when his mother came in, holding up a cup of sweetened coffee. She admired one of the statues from up close. 

"We ought to commission this artist more often, their craftsmanship is beautiful."

"I'll remember that." Bucky looked down at the altar, pressed his hands against the flawless smooth stone, the curved ceremony dagger glittering in the moonlight. He hoped Sothoth would find his gift suitable. 

His fingers brushed against the handle of the dagger, and as he did so, a golden glimmer started breaking the space above the altar. 

“Mother,” Bucky said with awe.

She came beside him. “He never appeared without summoning before.”

“Well, you said he’s omniscient.” Winifred looked at him, confused, and stiffened when he picked up the dagger.

“James, dear, what are you doing?”

Bucky grabbed the back of her head when she meant to step back, away from him. Her hair was soft in his grasp.

"I have a gift for you," he told Him, heart thumping hard in his ribcage, before slicing his mother’s throat from ear to ear. Blood poured out in quick bursts like a geyser to the beat of her heart, the carotid severed. The warm liquid sprayed Bucky all over his face and down his neck, some even fell into his mouth. He swallowed some of it before spitting the rest out, holding her until she stopped struggling. 

Tentacles slid through the portal to embrace his mother and brought her on the other side, into His dimension. Nothing more happened for a long moment, and just when Bucky thought he'd been abandoned, the Gate opened once more to Sothoth. He was human-like again, flawless and perfect with blond hair falling over his muscular torso and brushing against his tentacles. 

His eyes glowed as they gazed down at him, and He mumbled something in the same alien language Bucky didn’t understand, but he could recognise the praising tone. He grew warm all over, bashfully pleased, and dropped the dagger. 

“A mother’s love. Your most precious gift,” Sothoth purred, extended His powerful arms to cup his face gently. He licked the blood off Bucky’s cheeks, his chin, his lips. Bucky’s knees buckled and only the slim flexible appendages hugging him kept him upright. 

"You're such a good, sweet thing. Is there anything else you desire?" 

Bucky shook his head, captivated by the deity's attention on him. He tentatively touched His bare broad shoulders. He was so much taller than him, hovering over him. "Only your love." 

Sothoth darkly chuckled and kissed him deeply, explored his mouth with his long tongue until Bucky got breathless and dizzy, painfully hard in his slacks. "I could do this all day. Love you until you remember nothing but pleasure at my mercy." 

"Please. Yes," Bucky breathed out, gasped in surprise when he was tucked in His arms like he weighed nothing. 

"Then hold onto me, sweet thing." 

Bucky gingerly did that, his arms finding purchase around His neck and his legs around His waist. 

Sothoth looked up at the opened ceiling. With a powerful jump, He propulsed them out towards the stars and the cosmos. 


End file.
